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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (176831)	12/2/2005 2:34:50 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I dont think they necessarily picked the greatest threat among the list People can differ about that. I think a great argument could be made that Iran was a greater danger. Problem is we were already militarily involved with Iraq because we didn't resolve the situation there after the Gulf War. And that involvement precluded other targets for the time IMO. we should have been much more prepared or at least aware of what would happen. That sounds okay as a criticism. I don't think we knew how easy it would be for AQ-types to enter Iraq from other Arab countries and we didn't know how tolerant of "insurgents" the Sunni community would be. And we didn't have some wonderful plan which would handle these problems quickly and easily. The thing is though you can never really know everything about the future and "analysis paralysis" is not desirable either. It was unwillingness to act under uncertainty which caused Saddam to be left in power so long. moderate pro-war guy I think I still am. There are people who believe Muslims are congenitally incapable of becoming peaceful democrats. Muslims are thought of as irredeemably primitive people who need to be ruled by some brute who will terrorize them into being somewhat peaceful. I realize few people phrase it like I just did - but that's what a lot of people who poormouth the effort to install democracy in Iraq (and that is what we're fighting for) think. Whether democratic self-rule and some degree of modernism can take permanent root in Iraq despite the violent opposition of the AQ-types will have a big influence on whether the war with Iraq is a great success in the long run or not. I don't know whether the critics are right. We're going to find out though. We do know Japanese and Chinese (in Taiwan) and Koreans and many other peoples around the world have gone through the transition we want the ME to go through. But only TWT whether Islamic culture is an insurmoutable barrier that can't be crossed. If it is, then we still have a big (military) problem to deal with.